Hello there, beautiful soul!
Hope this message finds you well.
The third month of the year is upon us. Not too late to begin working towards your goals that you’d like to materialize this year! In the same fashion, projects across the ecosystem are working diligently towards theirs. To learn more about how some of the past Catalyst challenges have been doing so far - we’ve had three great presentations this week that provided insights for all of us to reflect upon. You’ll find the links further below.
Otherwise, it’s very heartwarming seeing the elevated interest in all things governance. Liveliness is one of the key pillars to produce a good set of outcomes. I appreciate everyone who has engaged on the topic of Voltaire and continues doing so. Many exciting community tools are being spun up.
I also commend everyone who continues to engage in a respectful discourse. As a whole, opinions may vary person to person. Let’s make sure we always take a deep breath before responding to the other side of the argument. Let’s practice pro-active listening and considerate responses.
So - what’s the latest? Dive in.
Town Hall
TH Recording: https://bit.ly/3ZOSs5m
TH Slides: Project Catalyst Townhall - Mar 8 - Google Slides- TH Playlist: link here
Break Out Rooms: https://bit.ly/33i38SB
- Want to open your own room next time? Book it via this form at least 24hrs in advance and get those conversations rolling!
Next: Mar 15 at 5PM UTC. Register now via this recurring link.
Challenge Team Updates
This week we’ve seen another three distinct presentations from Challenge Teams (CTs). These teams are a fundamental piece in the puzzle to help resurface trends and insights from the past challenges that took place in the Catalyst funding rounds.
In the most recent rounds, some of these requirements are gradually expanding, such as with the introduction of a milestones pilot in F9. It requires community endorsements on reviews for the achievement of milestones that projects submit to receive further funding. Historically, CTs have had three key deliverables.
- Present the concept of the specific challenge to the community when Fund begins
- To onboard funded projects in that challenge once governance is over and the execution stage begins
- With time passing, to reflect back on the successes, failures, insights, and learnings about challenge effectiveness and outcomes - collectively addressing a question - what return on intention has the community received?
This week we saw presentations that address the third deliverable on the list from these teams:
- Fund 8 CT: Developer Ecosystem
- Fund7 CT: DAOs <3 Cardano
- Fund8 CT: Film + Media (FAM) creatives unite
Thank you to all the teams that have diligently worked to date as stewards of countless Catalyst challenges.
Voltaire/CIP-1694
In recent weeks, the overall interest in Cardano governance has increased tremendously. It is great to see civic engagement via lively, constructive discourse and debates on the proposed CIP-1694 and beyond.
Meanwhile, as the outcome of the first workshop held in Colorado is currently being processed and will be published in the coming weeks - the community is stepping up with various initiatives to help keep the conversation going. LidoNation has introduced a www.1694.io portal, Catalyst Swarm has held a workshop and also arranged a bounty call for translations, and Governance Guild spearheaded Voltaire News! hub.
What is Voltaire News! specifically? Check out this timestamped segment from the last town hall to learn more. But in a nutshell: a new collaborative community newsletter started by Governance Guild to help the community keep track of the CIP-1694 debate.
If you fancy another set of views - I recommend reviewing ‘let’s talk governance’ twitter space held by Charles Hoskinson (CEO of IOG) this past weekend. You can catch all (almost) three hours of it here.
If you wish to add your perspectives to CIP 1694, make sure to share them here. Add your voice as the era of Voltaire rolls out!
Last week in CIPs
Here’s the recap from my colleague Ryan Williams that writes these fantastic CIP round-ups. I figured you’d like them, too. So here’s the latest to get up to speed. You can catch past and future summaries via this Cardano forum thread here as well. If are unsure what CIPs are about - please check out this link to dive deeper: https://cips.cardano.org/.
RW: What happened in CIPs last week?
- CIP-??? First class errors / Make Plutus pure [New Proposal]:
- This proposal suggests making
errora first-class value within Plutus.
- This proposal suggests making
- CIP-??? Native Asset Policy Registration/Information Certificates [New Proposal]:
- This proposal defines a method for attaching off-chain metadata to native asset minting policy.
RW: Continued Recommendations:
- CIP-1694? A proposal for entering the Voltaire phase
- This proposes a revision of Cardano’s on-chain governance system to support the new requirements for Voltaire.
- This is a very important CIP and has had tonnes of recent engagement from the community; should see further refinement in the coming weeks.
- CIP-85? Sums-of-products in Plutus Core:
- This CIP proposes to add native support for datatypes to Plutus Core, and to use that support to implement more efficient interchange of the script context between the ledger and scripts.
- Lots of new engagement and discussion.
Next Meeting:
- CIP Editors Meeting #62:
- March 14th 9:30AM UTC.
- Postponed from Feb 28
- Held on Discord - here.
- Agenda TBD.
Further varied governance and Catalyst community conversations can be also followed on the official Cardano forum here. Don’t be shy to be part of the conversation.
Leadership Academy dRep Book Club - The Power of Experiments
The second meeting of the community dRep Book Club met on March 8, 2023 to discuss this book: The Power of Experiments. In The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data-Driven World, Michael Luca and Max Bazerman explore the value of experiments and the ways in which they can improve organizational decisions. Drawing on real-world experiments and case studies, Luca and Bazerman show that going by gut is no longer enough—successful leaders need frameworks for moving between data and decisions. Recording from this discussion can be found here - learn more how it might apply to Catalyst and possible ethical questions this could raise.
Find the book club chat on the Leadership Academy Discord: https://discord.gg/y8FNFek6B2
Learnings from beyond Cardano borders
It always pays to lift the head from time to time and look around what others are building - what challenges are they facing, if any lessons learned could be applied. One of the places I like to visit is Ethereum, and more specifically their somewhat equivalent of Catalyst - by name of Gitcoin. Recently, they’ve published a new way of how to combat bad actors and sybil resistance. Gitcoin is interesting because it has been iterating for a while on quadratic approaches to funding. A point of conversation in Catalyst as well.
This is a “Gitcoin Passport” Case study:
“Numerous Internet-based social entities need help ensuring each individual is a real person and does not set up multiple accounts. Sybil attacks rely on an attacker creating numerous identities that are not easily distinguishable from legitimate users. By creating a mechanism to detect and reject these false identities, web3 communities can be kept safe from malicious actors.”
P.S.: Would love you to share with me what your impressions/observations are and if anything is applicable/how for Catalyst use case. Tweet at me or message me directly on any of the platforms in the footer of this email.
Film Festival?
Chasing The Wada Dream is the first short documentary movie ever made with the support of Project Catalyst on Cardano. It was selected to be a part of @NucastIO film festival. It runs now from March 12 to March 18. How does it work? Learn in this thread below!
Treasury Guild Support
It’s that time of the year when people broadly think about their tax and reporting requirements. This vary tremendously between jurisdictions and case by case basis. However, this community funded project brings professionals from the ecosystem together to leverage the community intelligence on this topic. You can catch their presentation here for more information.
Or visit the website directly via https://www.treasuryguild.io/.
Register to vote (or check if you still have a valid QR/PIN)
Don’t forget to register for a Catalyst Special Voting Event (SVE) if you haven’t already. If you’ve cast a vote in the past - you just need to ensure you still have a valid QR and PIN code available. Here’s the guide. Not sure what SVE is just yet? The Catalyst team also shared a quick update during this month’s Cardano 360 show and you can catch the timestamped segment here. More information coming soon.
Caught my attention
Connection documentation; Feedback, issue reporting; The tweet above is here.
Catalyst GitHub Repo - Weekly Round-Up
One of the primary objectives this year is to make it easier for Community members to understand how Catalyst works on the technical side and to access the Catalyst technical backend to increase transparency in systems. The major side effect later this year is expected to be around the ability of the community to come along and start co-creating/helping build/suggest improvements to these foundations.
This repo is the starting point and we’re seeking improvements to it throughout the months to come. For now, feel free to bookmark the pages and lurk around as we get it ready:
- GitHub - input-output-hk/catalyst-core: ⚙️ Core Catalyst Governance Engine and utilities.
Catalyst Core Documentation - Page Redirection (draft/WIP)
Community Events
Many community events are taking place regularly across the ecosystem. In the image above and below you can find a snippet of what is available out there. A great way to lurk around and over time participate even more directly. You can browse more via this link.
Catalyst Project Completions - 450+ and counting!
400+ projects funded by Catalyst have been completed to date by submitting their self-reported close-out reports and videos. Not seeing your favorite project completed yet? You can check their progress on other tabs and also the monthly reporting output documents. Save the links below:
- Monthly Reporting: Catalyst Public Reporting Tracker - Google Sheets
- Monthly Report Output Data: Public Catalyst Monthly Reporting - Google Sheets
- Proposal Journey: Proposal Journey in Catalyst (public) - Google Docs
- Want to do more? Check this call to action about accountability and participation!
- You can also reference this town hall slide for the first meeting outcome.
Are spreadsheets a little too much? Leverage community tools like Lido Nation which you can find here or via projectcalyst.io website directly.
Get in touch
And that’s a wrap. Let’s talk Catalyst & governance via twitter, or telegram, or reddit, or wherever is your home online and keep conversations engaging on these very important topics.
Enjoy your day ahead!
Danny & the Project Catalyst team
Daniel Ribar
Community at Project Catalyst
Note: References in this newsletter to the 3rd party projects, products, and services are provided for information purposes only and are not endorsements. Everyone should carry out their own investigations before relying on the information provided in this newsletter.
